The Future Of Twitter Visualized

During his keynote at the TWTRCON conference yesterday in San Francisco, Steve Rubel showed off a mind map he made entitled “The Future of Twitter.” The map, which I’ve embedded below with his permission, is an interesting way to look at the state of the service.

It starts out branching into two different directions: “Twitter and the Ecosystem,” and “Twitter as an OS.” One side shows what could happen to Twitter in the future from possible threats (of services that can kill it), to companies that could acquire it, to those that it could acquire. The other side shows Twitter as a social OS versus its role as a marketing OS. From there it goes into its role as a platform, and the rise of the apps based around it.

The map is a good look into what is becoming an increasingly complex web of relationships involving Twitter on the Internet. As the service continues to gain popularity, this web will only continue to expand unless one of the threats destroys it or if a larger company acquires it. Rubel has more in his post on the matter. Brian Solis‘ and Jess3’s Twitterverse diagram also offers a good visual look into the state of Twitter.

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Click on the image for a larger view

[photo: flickr/steverubel]